Request for Saanich, Canada to keep its nuclear-free status

The request comes from the Vancouver Island Peace and Disarmament Network, which describes itself as an “open coalition of peace keepers representing diverse views and approaches to peace and disarmament with a focus on on Canada’s role domestically and internationally.”

The group recently participated in last month’s Ban the Bomb rally held out the provincial legislature.

Saanich’s status as a zone free of nuclear weapons dates back to the final years of the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union when council passed a motion in 1983 that declared Saanich “a nuclear weapons free zone and that the production, testing, storage, transportation, processing disposal or use of nuclear weapons or their components not to be undertaken in Saanich.”